Every holiday has its rituals, and every family has its own way of interpreting those rituals. I first learned this lesson in Hebrew School in the sixth grade, while helping my teachers prepare latkes for a Chanukah celebration. Ms. H’s pancakes were similar to the ones I knew and loved: very thin with visible shreds of potato, dark golden brown on the exterior, but almost burnt on the edges, and dull gray on the inside (because no matter what tricks you tried, the potato batter always turned color before you cooked it). Ms. E’s were completely different: thick, about one inch high, light golden on the outside and fluffy white inside, with the texture and consistency of mashed potatoes.

Though I secretly believed that Ms. E’s tasted better, I couldn’t reconcile the alien nature of her pancakes with my concept of Chanukah. I felt as if by boiling the potatoes first, she was breaking some kind of ancient rule. Hers were fine for the rest of the year (as long as you called them potato pancakes, not latkes) but for Chanukah, latkes had to be lacey, flat, a little oily, and crispy through and through.

Despite — or perhaps because of — the hardship and inevitable minor accidents, my family believes it’s best to start with potatoes coarsely shredded by hand, along with a bit of finely minced onion. (It’s best if chopping the onions makes your eyes tear a bit.) The shredded potatoes must be thoroughly drained of liquid then bound with matzo meal and a beaten egg to hold it all together. At Chanukah you can use flour, too.

Over the years, I have used jugs of grape seed oil — recommended for frying because it doesn’t smoke or burn at high temperatures — poured spoonfuls of batter into bubbling hot oil, and waited impatiently to turn them until they became brown around the edges. In a perfect world, latkes should always be eaten as soon as possible after frying, hot enough to burn your mouth, allowing just a few seconds for draining on layers of paper towels. This means that not everyone gets to eat at the same time, but the integrity of the latke is maintained.

The next challenge to my set notions of family rituals occurred when my brother married. I was more open to new rituals than I had been in sixth grade, but I still wasn’t quite ready for what his wife had in store for us when she invited our extended family to celebrate Chanukah. Sure, she and my brother served traditional potato pancakes with apple sauce and sour cream, but there were also shocking variations: savory zucchini pancakes and sweet-enough-for-dessert lemon ricotta pancakes.

Now Chanukah doesn’t seem complete without some innovative kind of latkes. I love to experiment with every kind of root vegetable imaginable. One of my favorite Jewish holiday cookbooks, Jayne Cohen’s “The Gefilte Variations” (Scribner, 2000), includes not only mouth-watering variations on the classics — celery root-potato pancakes, crispy shallot latkes with sugar dusting, and Greek-inspired cheese latkes — but also enlightening head notes that explain the ritual, history, or personal desire for something different, behind each of her variations.

While various combinations of carrot, parsnip, Jerusalem artichoke, beet, zucchini, sweet potato or squash, and cauliflower may require an open mind, as rituals go, the symbolism of latkes has little if anything to do with potatoes. It’s the oil in the temple that lasted for 8 days instead of one that we commemorate when we fry any flavor of pancakes in oil.

Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes

Food historians believe that the first latkes were likely filled with cheese. My family also likes savory feta cheese latkes, but these subtly sweet pancakes are a miracle.

3 /4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
zest and juice of one lemon
oil for frying (butter tastes better on the griddle, but then you won’t be honoring the ritual)

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients with a fork. Then gently blend with wet ingredients. Do not over-mix: The batter should be thick and lumpy. Fill a tablespoon to overflowing with batter and drop gently into hot oil. Cook until batter begins to bubble and begin to solidify and turn golden brown around the edges. Flip and finish the other side.

Serve pancakes warm, plain, with powdered sugar or jam, or drizzled with honey.

Makes 10 to 15 silver dollar pancakes.